1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to devices that prevent birds from landing in preselected areas. More particularly, it relates to a device that surmounts a boat mast to prevent birds from alighting atop the mast.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The top of a boat mast is an attractive perch for most birds because it is high and isolated. Thus, birds feel protected from ground-based predators when perched atop a boat mast. Their droppings are unsightly, however, and require the boat owner to spend a lot of time cleaning up after a bird or birds has roosted on the mast. The problem is worse, of course, if the boat has been moored for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, the chemical composition of bird droppings is sometimes damaging to the finish of the boat, necessitating costly repair work.
Boat owners have tried mounting artificial owls, snakes, and other predators on or near the top of the mast, but the birds eventually realize the artificiality of such scarecrow devices and begin roosting on them, and the fouling of the boat resumes.
Inventors have developed several devices intended to keep birds from landing in preselected areas. Examples of such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,292,319 to McCarthy and U.S. Pat. No. 4,074,653 to Pember, for example. However, these devices include rotating or flapping parts and thus require a motor, a source of power, relatively complex structural parts, and continual maintenance.
Thus, a need remains extent for a simple, maintenance-free apparatus having no moving parts, which consumes no power and that effectively foils bird landings on boat masts. The needed device would represent a permanent solution to the problem and would not be defeated once birds have become familiar with it.
However, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in this art how the needed improvements could be provided, in view of the art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made.